Moms of the Missing, page 11
Miss Zellers was killed when she was just nineteen years old. She had been on her way home from work when she was murdered. The teenager was found a few hundred feet from a hotel where a young man, Robert Craig Cox, was celebrating with his parents. Robert had just graduated from his army training.
During the night the young soldier had gone out on his own, but when he returned to the hotel he was covered in blood. When his parents rushed him to the hospital he told the staff that he had bitten off a part of his tongue. However, the examiner quickly concluded that was impossible due to the direction of the bite. Therefore, someone else must have bit it off. As Miss Zellers’ deceased body was found at about the same time, police decided to interrogate Robert Craig Cox. He denied any involvement, and because DNA testing was not reliable in 1978, the soldier walked without being charged.
Shortly afterwards, Robert Craig Cox travelled with his army unit to California, where he served as a highly skilled Army Ranger—until he was arrested in 1985 for the abduction of two women on two separate occasions.
TELL THE TRUTH
Once in custody Robert Craig Cox was transferred to Florida and indicted for the murder of Sharon Zeller. This time the ex-soldier was found guilty and placed on death row, but the sentence was later reversed because of a lack of DNA evidence.
Instead of ending his days on death row, Robert Craig Cox served only seven years for the abductions in California. After being released on parole, he moved to Springfield, Missouri, to live with his parents.
In Missouri he searched for a new beginning and work. He found a job at a car dealership—the very same place where Stacy’s father worked as a salesman, and where he may very well have met Stacy.
“She was the kind of girl that would make people’s head turn. It’s very likely Robert Craig Cox would have noticed her,” Janis says.
When this information became public, people began speculating whether Stacy had been his prey all along, and if he perhaps had followed her on the night she disappeared. And with his background as a Special Forces soldier, he had the skills to subdue three women.
A few years later Robert Craig Cox sparked additional speculation about his involvement when he conducted an interview with the Springfield television reporter, Dennis Graves. The interview was conducted while Robert Craig Cox was still in prison; it aired the first time in 1996 on KYTV in Springfield and again in 2017 on the national television show True Crime Daily.
When the convicted criminal was asked about Stacy, Suzie, and Sherill, he told the reporter, cryptically, “I just know that they are dead. That is not my theory. I just know.”
However, once law enforcement’s attention had shifted to Robert Craig Cox, investigators found they were not able to charge him with the crimes related to Stacy’s, Suzie’s, and Sherill’s disappearances, because the prisoner’s girlfriend provided an alibi for him, stating that he had been with her at church when the women went missing.
But when Robert Craig Cox was later arrested and put in jail in Texas for aggravated robbery, his ex-girlfriend finally came forward, admitting that Robert Craig Cox had never been with her on the night of the abductions.
“Apparently, Robert Craig Cox had instructed her to give him an alibi, so we do not know the truth about his whereabouts on the night [in question],” Janis says.
During the interview for True Crime Daily, Robert Craig Cox also stated that he might one day tell the truth about what happened on that horrible night in 1992. He is prepared to tell all he knows once his eighty-two-year-old mother is dead.
“It is not a nice thing, but I am just waiting for his mother to pass away,” Janis says. “I want to know if Robert Craig Cox is toying with us, if he just wants the attention, or if he actually knows what happened to them.”
When asked, Janis says she believes that Robert Craig Cox is the kidnapper, and if she gets the chance she will go to the prison where Robert Craig Cox is incarcerated to confront him. Today, he is serving a life sentence in Texas for aggravated robbery.
“It does not matter if the police are there or not. I want to go and see him and let him know what he has done to us. If he took them I want him to see how much he has hurt us. He not only did the crime to them. He also did it to us,” Janis explains.
She would also like to confront Robert Craig Cox in order to find her daughter’s remains. If he was responsible for her death he would know where Stacy has been buried. Janis says she just wants to bring home what is left of her daughter.
“If I can’t see him in prison, I hope he is reading this book so he knows about the discomfort and pain we feel. Hopefully that would make him feel so sorry that he tells exactly what he did and how we can [get] Stacy’s remains back. I would want him to know that we won’t pursue the death penalty. We just want answers. If she is buried, if she is in a lake, or if she is still alive,” Janis says.
Although she believes Robert Craig Cox abducted the three women, she still refuses to pronounce Stacy dead; she won’t do that until her remains have been found. For several reasons. Janis says she could be wrong about Robert Craig Cox, and she still hopes that Stacy is living safely somewhere in the world, and that one day she will return home.
“In my mind I know the chances of her coming back are almost non-existing, and if she comes back she is not gonna be the same person, but that does not matter. I just want her back, and I will have her any way she is,” the mother explains.
Janis also says that is why she still does interviews about her daughter.
“I hope she sits somewhere reading this book too, and if she does she will know that we would like her to come back. She can come by herself, with kids, or anyway she likes. I think it could still be a possibility that she has been brainwashed and lives somewhere believing that her life was intended to be this way though she is being held hostage, but if she reads this perhaps she will recognise who she was and decide to come home. We would be so happy if she does,” Janis says. She also explains that hope never leaves her, even though she has lived almost three decades without any trace of Stacy.
At times Janis believes that she has seen her daughter in the streets. When she gets that feeling she always walks up to the woman to find out if she might be her daughter. Often, the woman thinks Janis is a bit crazy, but she doesn’t care.
“It is painful thinking I have seen her and then realising I was wrong, but what if I was right? Today it does not happen often, but [near] the beginning of her disappearance I often thought I saw her. But the pain that always follows when I realise I haven’t has, over the years, gotten too hard to bear,” Janis confides.
GO TO HELL
When Janis is asked to talk about how she has managed to keep her hopes up for twenty-six years, she answers very quickly: “God.” Janis is a religious woman. When she realised there was nothing she could do to change what happened to Stacy, “I turned it over to God,” she explains.
“If Satan is there and makes people do wrong, God is still there to forgive and give people the chance to do right,” she says. “But if this person that might have killed the girls is dead I would not want him to be there in heaven with them. I would want him to go to hell. It is terrible to feel this way, but that is how I do feel. He has ruined so many lives and done [so] much evil. He should pay for that,” Janis avers.
However, she no longer has the same need for revenge that she did during the first several years following Stacy’s disappearance. Back then she would have picked up a gun and shot the perpetrator right away if she had had the chance. That is how angry and hurt she felt.
“But I do not have that need anymore,” she says. “Especially my grandchildren have changed me. They have brought a new love into my life. I am very attached to them, and I do not want them to think I am a bad person.”
In the beginning when her daughter went missing Janis always contemplated what she had done wrong. Today she no longer blames herself. Instead she feels that the abduction of her daughter is the kind of injustice that happens to innocent people and that you cannot prepare yourself for, especially if you are the victim of someone’s vicious acts. You just have to accept that tragedy may be a part of life that nobody wants. According to Janis the best way to move on is to stay positive and never give up hope.
“Because the only ones responsible are the people who commit these crimes. And they do not deserve also to be ruining the lives of the relatives,” Janis says.
She still hopes that her daughter’s abductor and possible killer will one day face justice in a court of a law. Janis no longer needs to know exactly what happened to her daughter on that summer night in 1992. Because reality might be too cruel to handle.
“I can’t stand thinking about what Stacy has gone through and might still go through. What Stacy, Suzie, and Sherill have felt and perhaps still feel,” Janis says, adding that she sometimes even has dreams about the pain her daughter has suffered.
“In my first dream after her abduction she was sitting on a wooden chair with her hands behind her back, and she just said, ‘Help me’. That is my typical kind of dream. I have also dreamt she has been killed. When I wake up it is difficult carrying on,” Janis acknowledges.
Over the years, Janis has forced herself not to speculate about answers she cannot provide for herself. Today, the most important thing for Janis is simply knowing whether her daughter is alive or dead—and, in the worst case scenario, where her remains are.
“I feel Stacy is always here with me, and that I can talk to her. But I think that all parents who have lost a child need their remains and a physical place where they can go and talk to them. It gives you comfort having them present. And I want that headstone of hers for all of us so we can find peace,” Janis says.
Until then Janis finds another kind of comfort by helping other parents who have had a child be abducted. After Stacy’s disappearance Janis founded an organisation called One Missing Link. Through the organisation she has helped thousands of desperate parents over a period of twenty years. She has always given them the same advice that she has lived by for the past twenty-six years: take one hour at a time, then one day at a time.
“And days became weeks, months, years—and now decades. But I have always had the feeling that if I can make it through today, I can make it through tomorrow as well,” Janis observes.
Due to several health issues, Janis had to close down the organisation, but some parents still call when they lose a child. As Janis listens to their stories they always brings back bad memories of her own, but she would never say “no” to helping others, because she knows from her own experience that parents missing a child need to talk with others to get through their grief.
“From my story I have been able to help people and tell them what comes next, right after an abduction. How they will react during holidays, what situations are especially rough. I can also tell them what to do to get through these situations. The most important thing is always talking to others about the persons they are missing,” Janis notes.
According to her, parents get comfort knowing that God is taking care of their loved ones, no matter where they may be.
“That gives me comfort as well. But I do wish He instead would send her back home,” Janis confides.
(Missing person flyer provided by Jo Ann Lowitzer)
Survivor, Alicia Kozakiewicz (private photo by Alicia Kozakiewicz)
(Missing person flyer provided by Cindy Young)
Missing, Christopher Louis Zaharias (photo provided
by Louis Zaharias)
Missing, Lisa Mae Zaharias (photo provided by Louis Zaharias)
Deceased, Christopher Meyer (private photo by Mika Moulton)
Deceased, Johnia Berry (private photo by Joan Berry)
Survivor, Alicia Kozakiewicz and her mother Mary Kozakiewicz (private photo by Alicia Kozakiewicz)
(Missing person flyer provided by Marianne Asher-Chapman)
Missing, Raymond Green (photo provided by Donna Green)
Deceased, Samantha Runnion (private photo by Erin Runnion)
Missing, Stacy McCall and her mother Janis McCall
(private photo by Janis McCall)
Survivor, Rhonda Stapley (private photo by Rhonda Stapley )
7
THE MOST LIKELY VICTIM
The majority of children and adolescents who become victims of non-family abductions are girls between the ages of twelve and seventeen. Almost eight of ten victims of non-family abductions are females, a study from the U.S. Department of Justice shows. During the course of the study, authorities investigated 105 abduction cases that occurred over a one-year period. Nearly two-thirds of the victims were white and one-third were black.
When law enforcement investigated the cases they found that one-third of those abducted were taken from a place where they were living or staying. Another one-third were abducted at the kidnapper’s house. The final third (36 percent) were taken from a public place.
When an adolescent is taken, most of the time the perpetrator’s approach has incorporated deception or nonthreatening behaviour.
In almost two-thirds of the abduction cases studied by the Department of Justice, the victims voluntarily went with the kidnappers—at first. Young children often go voluntarily with the perpetrator. In most cases, regardless of the child’s age, the victim is lured into—and transported from the abduction site by—a car.
Six out of ten victims of non-family abductions are detained for more than twenty-four hours, and two-thirds of the victims are sexually assaulted during their detainment. Thirty-five percent of the victims, who are stereotypically depicted as being the victims of only a kidnapping, are also physically assaulted by the abductor.
Jo Ann Lowitzer’s daughter, Alexandria, was abducted when she was sixteen years old and on her way home from school. Today, almost ten years later, she is still missing.
A Runaway Investigation
Missing: Alexandria “Ali” Joy Lowitzer
Date of Birth: 02/03/1994
Missing From: Spring, Texas
Missing Since: 04/26/2010 (16 years old)
Classification: Endangered Missing
Interview: Jo Ann Davis Lowitzer, mother of Ali
For weeks, Ali rushed home from school to check on the eggs in the bird’s nest. Her father, John, had discovered the nest in the family’s backyard during a barbecue party, and the fifth grader immediately made it her mission to check on the eggs every afternoon after school. As soon as she found them to be safe and sound she would call her mother at work to tell her.
One day Ali discovered the eggs had finally hatched, and she immediately fell in love with the newborn birds. But her joy was quickly shattered. A snake in the nest was eating the birds and there was nothing she could do to save them. She called her mother that afternoon, heartbroken. When she finally found a neighbour to come and kill the snake, it was too late. All the birds were gone. Ali felt that she had failed them, because it was in her nature to help others, whether it was people or animals who were in need of it.
“If I had let her bring home every stray dog she found there would not have been room for the rest of us in the house,” Jo Ann recalls. She adds that her best memory of Ali was witnessing how she always felt compassion for others.
“She was such a caring, loyal, and happy girl,” the mother says.
Even though she had an interest in other people, Ali was also very shy. Jo Ann explains how proud it made her feel when her daughter overcame her shyness and sang an unaccompanied rendition of the National Anthem at a local rodeo. Jo Ann also feels the pride she has in her daughter whenever she looks around her living room.
“My house is full of craft work. Ali was so artistic. She made art all the time and was hoping to study art at college. She was so generous and always gave her artwork to others. When I look at her art in my house it brings back so many great memories of her,” Jo Ann says.
However, one memory overshadows all else.
It was a nice, warm Monday at the end of April. Ali spent the weekend at her mother’s house, constantly practicing playing an acoustic guitar. The sixteen-year-old girl had recently picked up an interest in playing guitar, and she was determined to learn how to master it.
Ali put the guitar away only when her new boyfriend, DJ, came over to the house. Like other teenagers in love, Ali was over the moon with joy and excitement. When she went to school the next morning nothing indicated that her happiness was about to be shattered. After class, prior to Ali taking the school bus back home, she called her mother at work. At the time, Jo Ann was working for a shipping logistics company. Ali asked if it would be okay to walk to her workplace, the Burger Barn, on Cypresswood Road, a quarter mile from her home in Spring, Texas, just north of Houston. The sophomore was going to pick up a paycheque.
“She had never walked there before, but she talked me into letting her for the first time. That is the biggest regret in my life,” Jo Ann says.
When Jo Ann returned home a couple of hours later, Ali had not yet returned. Jo Ann came to the conclusion that Ali had probably spontaneously accepted a work shift, so she decided to send her daughter a text, asking when Ali wanted Jo Ann to pick her up at work. But there was no reply from Ali.
